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Songs of tractors and submission: on the assembled politicity of popular music and far-right populism in Austria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

André Doehring Open the ORCID record for André Doehring [Opens in a new window]  and
Kai Ginkel
André Doehring*
Affiliation:
University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, Institute for Jazz Research, Leonhardstraße 15/II, 8010 Graz, Austria
Kai Ginkel*
Affiliation:
University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, Institute for Jazz Research, Leonhardstraße 15/II, 8010 Graz, Austria
*
E-mail: andre.doehring@kug.ac.at
kai.ginkel@kug.ac.at
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Abstract

Our article addresses the connection between popular music and far-right populism, as exemplified by the Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ). We discuss the specific mainstreaming and normalizing potential of popular music for far-right populist politics, by means of songs that do not qualify as political or politicized music in the sense of carrying a clear political message. We introduce a multi-step methodology that addresses performative aspects of actual situations of reception (fieldwork) and in-depth analyses of the music and its affordances (group analysis). Based on this approach, we argue that these ambivalent, sometimes even contradictory musical performances take on a life of their own within a specific arrangement that we will term an assembled politicity, in the sense of a political potential activated through situational arrangements. In this way, the FPÖ's musical programme affords far-right populist interpretations through music that appears to be unsuspicious.

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Article
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Popular Music , Volume 41 , Special Issue 3: Popular Music and Populism , October 2022 , pp. 354 - 369
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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